


Run to You

by dianalilwashu



Category: Tattered Weave (Video Game)
Genre: Multi, alternate title: Hero Has Two Hands, chapter 2 warning: possession, multishipping ahoy, warning: true names
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dianalilwashu/pseuds/dianalilwashu
Summary: Inspired by the song Run to You by Pentatonix. When Dollmaker gets jealous of his best friend, Damsel schemes to find a happy ending for everyone involved.





	1. Your Glance Met My Stare

**Author's Note:**

> Please keep in mind that even though events in canon will be covered here and I'm on the writing team, this is a fanfic! None of this is canon!

No one quite had a way with words like Damsel. In character and out, she was a force to be reckoned with, pure passion in mortal form. To hear her was to be entranced, more deeply mesmerizing than even Siren had ever been, and who could resist such an intense compulsion as to grant her every desire? Even when it was a request that could get you killed.

Dollmaker lit another stick of incense to avoid looking at her for the hundredth time that night. His long ears twitched further downwards, but there was no escaping the echoes of her soft laughter sounding musically beneath the deep baritone of Hero’s whispered adoration. The smoke was placed strategically to cover their presence, with a few of the more bribable ghosts keeping watch at all ends of the graveyard. Unwillingly, Dollmaker glanced back at the loving couple.

Hero’s strong arms were scooped loosely around her, leaving space that Damsel gladly teased each time she leaned in for a kiss and then pulled back again. Their masks had been discarded, Hero’s hanging haphazardly on his scabbard, Damsel’s tossed carelessly aside. Her hands were on his muscular chest, toying with a fray in the fabric of the thin black undershirt Hero wore outside of performances. Dollmaker’s fingers twitched jealously. Quickly he looked away again, forcing himself to take smooth, careful steps back toward the crypt where he could hide from his unkind thoughts.

He let himself steal one more wistful glance we he reached the door. Dollmaker almost jumped when Hero’s eyes met his, the man’s unguarded expression too revealing - Dollmaker hastily shut the door closed behind him. He simply stood there, braced against the door as if Hero’s face wasn’t a mere illusion of his own projections. But how could it be, so defenseless without a mask? If he hadn’t just spent ages watching the couple coo over each other, he would have sworn Hero’s eyes were - no. No, he was being ridiculous. He had to stop these childish fantasies.

Minutes stretched like hours inside the mausoleum. Dollmaker tended to every spirit he could find, desperate for tasks to distract his obsessive thoughts. Hero’s face haunted him though every moment of it. No matter what he did, he couldn’t chase the helpless feeling that Hero had seen straight through him, as if Dollmaker were the one without a mask. Wasn’t it fitting, then, that his mask was covered in eyes, yet he felt so easily watched? Eventually Dollmaker ran out of excuses, knowing the incense would be dissipating soon enough that the happy couple would have to part before they were seen.

When he opened the door, Damsel was there, alone. Dollmaker turned his head to see where Hero had gone, so unused to the sight of his best friend without her beau that he expected Hero to be chasing a dropped weapon or something nearby. “I sent him home,” Damsel told him plainly. Though she had her mask back on, the smile in her voice was as clear as any visible expression would have been. “Disappointed?”

“That’s good, I was just returning to warn you of the time,” Dollmaker said evasively. “Are you not heading home as well? Wolf may get suspicious of such late hours.”

“You always keep late hours,” Damsel replied smoothly, sliding past him into the crypt. Dollmaker politely closed the door behind her, then regretted it when she circled on him, propping her chin up on one elbow that rested on the door, pinning him in place. “Something keeping you up?”

Dollmaker shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny. A mask was no shield against Damsel’s allure. He knew better than to lie outright to her - it never worked. “Why do you ask?”

Damsel grinned wide enough for her sharp teeth to show underneath the prim smile painted on her mask. “Because you’re too delicate to handle these things without me,” she teased viciously. “Always a secondary, never a lead. Isn’t there something worth auditioning for? Someone, even? One spotlight you’d-”

“Where are you going with this,” Dollmaker interrupted, dreading her direction.

Damsel’s free hand roamed up his chest, walking two fingers along his buttons like feet climbing a stair. “Where do you want me to go with this?”

“I don’t,” he answered shakily, his own hand catching hers before she reached his skin. “Damsel, I - I would never place myself between you. You must know that.”

Damsel eyed him through her mask, briefly silent. “You’d rather have Hero between us instead, hm?” Dollmaker choked. “I knew it,” she crowed triumphantly, her laughter almost infectious enough to reach past Dollmaker’s anxious spluttering.

Damsel pulled him away from the wall with a twirl, using their joined hands to lead him despite being much shorter. “Oh, Verne, please! Did you really think you had to hide from me? I can hardly fault you for liking the same man I do. I’m not a hypocrite, am I?” When they stopped moving, she pulled both of his hands into hers and beamed up at him warmly. “You’re my best friend, foolish as you can be. I wouldn’t let a little something like romance keep us from sharing our secrets!”

Dollmaker squirmed in place, sweat beading around his neck and sticking strands of long, cobwebbed hair to his skin. “I was only trying to…” he trailed off, not sure if he could finish the thought.

“I know, darling.” Damsel let go of his hands to hug him around his middle, her masked face tilted up toward him playfully. “You’re ever trying to help others without helping yourself. Someday I’ll teach you, you’ll see! It’s good to be selfish when it matters.”

Carefully Dollmaker extracted himself from the hug, gently stroking Damsel’s soft hair. “I am content,” he reassured her. “Seeing you happy with him is a joy, Damsel, one I’d not take from you.”

“Who says we can’t share?” The words hit him like a sandbag, knocking the wind from him. Damsel pressed on, “I have to split my free time between the castle and the rest of the Stage. Hero tells me often how lonely it is when the Narrator has me for himself. Perhaps he needn’t be so lonely.”

“I’m not- That isn’t-“ Dollmaker stopped himself before he could blurt out the wrong line and ruin things, one hand subconsciously covering the lower half of his mask to shut himself up.

Damsel sighed and reached up, her hands touching the edge of his mask and then pausing. He gave a short shake of his head - no - he couldn’t let her see him like this. “Verne,” she said softly. He swallowed hard. “Verne, please.” It was so hard to refuse her when she spoke like that, like she cared about him more than life itself. “I’m sorry for being flippant,” Damsel continued when Dollmaker didn’t nod or shake his head. “I can see how serious this is to you. Please, Verne, don’t shut me out.”

Slowly he nodded, and she pulled the mask off. She lowered it onto her own to remove them both, stacked together, an intimate gesture he chose to momentarily ignore. Her face was beautiful, worthy of the attention she held under any spotlight, cheeks round and flush with emotion. “Talk to me,” she pleaded. “Tell me what you want.”

Dollmaker stamped down the impulse to spill every reckless word of heartsick poetry scribbled in his memory, fighting against fresh visions of Hero and Damsel embracing in the veiled smoke of the graveyard. “I want you to be happy,” he told her truthfully.

“I’m saying that I am happy,” Damsel insisted, watching him intently. “And I want you to be happy, too.” When Dollmaker said nothing, busy picking his words, she asked, “Can’t we both be happy?”

Always a secondary, never a lead. The words stung before, but context made them worse. Damsel was right, she was always right - he envied the spotlight she held in Hero’s heart and lacked the courage to do anything about it.

“Please don’t,” he said finally, voice tight. Damsel sighed heavily against him and gave him another squeeze. He returned the hug this time, then took up his mask again. Damsel kept hers off for another long minute, studying him silently, and Dollmaker was struck with the same sense of being seen through as when Hero had looked at him earlier.

When she picked up her own mask, she stood on tiptoe toward him before putting it back on. Obligingly he bent down so she could kiss his cheek, her lips partially landing on the mask instead of bare skin. “Goodnight, Verne,” she bid gently, affectionately patting the spot she’d kissed.

“Goodnight,” he returned politely, straightening to close the door behind her when she left. He dropped his head against the wood miserably. Having befriended Damsel in childhood, he knew the chances of her dropping the subject were as likely as being cast as the protagonist in the next play. Resigned, he knocked superstitiously on the door to chase off that horrible thought and just hoped she wouldn’t tell Hero.


	2. I Tried

“You… must be joking,” Dollmaker said slowly, staring at the script in his hands. Scribe scowled up at him, her ill-fitting mask sliding sideways off her little ears. Apparently Wolf hadn’t been happy about that casting. 

“I’m just here to hand out assignments,” she told him tartly. Her small hands waved a fistful of scripts at him emphatically. “You got a complaint, take it up with the Narrator.”

Dollmaker anxiously held up his hands in surrender. “No! No, it’s just… the Dollmaker is hardly a lead role.” He was still unsure just how much Scribe reported back to the Narrator, and he could hardly expect a child to read any nuance in his lines, no matter how talented the Narrator believed she was. 

“You’ll be working closely with the Narrator for this one.” Scribe shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll tell you precisely what to do. This is what you get for taking Damsel out so late at night so often. I’m not nearly as entertaining.”

Well that was entirely the opposite of reassuring. Dollmaker timidly thanked the girl and she left it at that, wandering off muttering under her breath. He was paging through the cast list when a hand slammed into his back, nearly knocking him over. Wolf laughed raucously as he stumbled. “So the spider sits under the spotlight now,” she teased, catching him by an elbow before he actually fell. “You ready for this?”

“Doubtful,” he answered honestly. “Scribe said it was payback. Do you think she’s right?”

Wolf nudged her mask up to pick at a piece of dead animal stuck between her teeth, thinking. “Probably. The poor girl’s too apt for her own good. Even Damsel was older than that in Lizard of Awe.” Wolf eyed their surroundings and raised her mask cautiously to show her face. “You swear you two aren’t an item? You could tell the Narrator; it’d be better if he heard it from you than a Stagehand.”

Dollmaker held up his hands again, laughing nervously. “Certainly not. As lovely as your daughter is, she’s - I’m not interested - not like that.”

“Eh, suit yourself,” Wolf shrugged, flipping her mask back down over her eyes. “She’s sure got every other eligible bachelor swooning in the front row. I have to beat them off with a stick!”

“Yes, I’ve seen.”

Wolf punched him in the arm and he winced. It was meant to be friendly, but she was a strong woman who didn’t pull her punches. “Relax! You’ll be fine. The Narrator will see there’s no secret conspiracy between you two and you can go back to giving cryptic advice and grim epilogues.” She grinned sharply at him. “Or he’ll scrap the whole thing and recast you as the Mourner. You seem so down lately. Is that why she’s visiting so much?”

“I think so,” Dollmaker nodded, smoothing the lie with a partial truth. “She always seems to know what I’m feeling.”

“Good instincts,” Wolf nodded agreeably. “You may have an eye for the details, Dollmaker, but sometimes I think you lose sight of the forest for the trees. This’ll be good for you. Just don’t get killed off in a plot twist. I’d never hear the end of it from Damsel.”

“It doesn’t seem like a dangerous part, at least,” Dollmaker said, flipping through the script again. 

Wolf shook her head at him. “I’m joking, fool. Make yourself a sense of humor.” Leisurely she stretched and began walking off toward the woods, running her fingers fondly over her weaponry. “I’m practically a bit part this time around, so you won’t be seeing much of me at rehearsals. I’ll pack an extra lunch for you with Damsel’s, you beanpole.”

“Thank you, Wolf,” he called out politely after her. She waved lazily without turning around.

Dollmaker continued skimming through the script as he wandered the maze of graves, idly tending to the cries of needy ghosts that reached his long ears. He’d have to do a thorough count, but if his estimate was accurate, he’d be too busy preparing props between rehearsals to give Damsel any time for her trysts. He sighed. That was likely the whole point of this play.

The leading lady in question arrived with the Narrator in tow. It wasn’t hard to tell when Damsel was being quoted; you never saw the glint of her real teeth beneath her mask. [ Scribe tells me you’ve got stage fright. Are you that unhappy with your role? ]

“I think she misunderstood my intent,” Dollmaker replied diplomatically, not looking up from his work. “I wished only to express my surprise at landing the lead part. The Dollmaker is a natural support role.” Smiling, he held up a doll in progress for the Narrator to see. “See how supportive I am?”

[ Cute. Normally I would agree, but Damsel’s musings have inspired an unusual change in plans. It is precisely because the Dollmaker is so unassuming that you’re suited for this villainous performance. Whilst the Damsel wanders through your wonderland of toys, unaware that she’s to be your next plaything, you will pull the puppet strings that direct her right into your waiting arms. I have high hopes for you, Dollmaker - high hopes for the both of you. I know you won't disappoint. I'll make sure of it. ]

There was a long moment of silence that seemed to imply the Narrator was gone. Damsel shook her head slightly as if waking herself, teeth grinding. She raised her mask and stepped lightly around the worktable, her fingers threading through his hair in a familiar, comforting gesture. Her nails, though not as sharp as her mother’s, scraped cobwebs from the long strands as she groomed him. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he answered kindly, smiling under his mask but not looking up from his doll. This was their code, a long practice held secret between friends who whispered warnings to each other in the graveyard: is the Narrator gone? “Are you?”

“Peachy,” she replied, which meant no. “I know you’re wary of the spotlight, but the Narrator and I talked it over for a long time, and we think you’re ready for something new, something challenging. And I’ll be right there by your side to play my part.”

“Thank you, Damsel. I’m afraid I may need all the help I can get. It is well within my ability to memorize my lines and hit my cues, but to make so many dolls for a single performance is daunting. I do hope the Narrator won’t mind if I rely on his skill should I falter.”

“I’m certain he won’t,” Damsel promised sweetly, leaning forward to press a kiss to his newly-cleaned head of hair. Well, the scalp was picked clean, at least. “He knows how much you mean to me, my friend.”

Dollmaker nodded along, his fingers steady on the thread that swiftly built a precious creature out of discarded scraps. “You’ll have to forgive me for lacking free time to host your visits. Oh! That reminds me - you should visit your mother. She mentioned missing you when I saw her this morning. Even if she doesn’t like coming here herself, I think you could bring incense for her to the Fox’s grave. He’d appreciate it all the same.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Damsel agreed, her voice tinged with sadness. “I may do that, then, since you’ll be busy.” She replaced her mask and started the long walk from his workspace to the crypt’s entrance, not pausing when she called back over her shoulder, “Don’t forget to finish the props for rehearsal before they need to be collected!”

He paused. For rehearsal? Surely the Stagehands would handle that. Suspiciously he put down the doll in his hands and reached for the script to reread what he had highlighted earlier. Strange, she was right, there were a few moving parts that would need to be adjusted during rehearsal or else he’d never get enough practice before showtime. He’d planned to read through the script in its entirety before bed, when his fingers needed the break, but if there were some dolls that took priority he needed to learn that now. It was only at the end of the script that he realized, heart sinking into his stomach, just what was really happening here.

[ The last of THE DOLLMAKER’S defenses come to his aid in this climactic final battle for THE DAMSEL. A doll from each of the six curtained entrances will converge upon her only hope, THE HERO. ]

In Scribe’s messy handwriting was an added note, reading: [ schedule choreography practice for THE HERO and THE DOLLMAKER before first rehearsal ]

“Oh.”


End file.
